Record Melting in Greenland during 2010 — This image, made from microwave measurements, maps Greenland’s melt season in 2010, which lasted 50 days longer than average. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. Global warming, though, that’s a liberal plot that’s only supported by the data.

In Defense of Elites — Yes, I would like my political leaders to be smarter and better informed than me, thank you very much. That isn’t threatening to a rational human being, that is reassuring.

Agnotology — Culturally induced ignorance or doubt. My view is that Quiggin is right as far as right-wing politicians are concerned: for the most part they know that Obama was born here, that he isn’t a socialist,that there are no death panels, and so on, but feel compelled to pretend to be crazy as a career move. (From @RivetNZ via danjite.)

I thought we were a bit better than the US regarding intelligent and well informed politicians, since we did not put someone like Sarah Palin into public office and our chancellor was a working physicist before her political career. But considering that 75% of our population don’t think it’s a big deal that the secretary of defense plagiarized his PhD thesis, because he is such a charismatic person and all who disagree are just jealous, I am not so sure.